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Editorial
By Natural Right, Israel Is A Jewish State
p
assing a law affirming that
Israel is a Jewish state
wouldn't solve anything. But
it couldn't hurt. It would represent a
constitutional-like mandate, making it
difficult for future Israeli governments
to ignore or alter Israel's Jewish char-
acter.
It also would counter Palestinian
Authority (P.A.) President Mahmoud
Abbas, who insists he'll never acknowl-
edge Israel as a Jewish state – the
ancestral homeland for Jews.
For those looking for more than
symbolic evidence of Israel's right
to be a Jewish state, they need look
no further than the U.N. General
Assembly's 1947 Israeli statehood
declaration or the 1948 Declaration of
Independence put forth by the Jewish
pioneers who established the State of
Israel. U.S. President Harry Truman
gave his endorsement as well.
Chances are Abbas, who leads P.A.-
controlled areas of the West Bank,
might one day recognize Israel as
the national homeland of the Jewish
people. He's likely holding out to keep
a bargaining chip should stalled nego-
tiations with Israel toward Palestinian
statehood resume. A peace accord
without such recognition is pure fan-
tasy.
With the Palestinians also seek-
ing Israel to absorb all Palestinian
refugees and their descendants
from Israel's war for independence,
upwards of 5 million people, Israel
has no choice but to consider a law
defining Israel as a Jewish state. Over
time, even welcoming half that num-
ber would effectively destroy Israel's
Jewish composition.
By the numbers, Israel is home to
8.2 million people. Jews comprise 75
percent of the population, or 6.1 mil-
lion people. Arabs total 20.7 percent,
or 1.6 million people. Druze, Christians
and other make up the difference.
The law being considered would
affirm the rights of non-Jews living
in the country, in accordance with
Israel's Declaration of Independence,
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu assured.
Israel has no constitution. But the
Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that
certain designated laws command
constitutional-like standing.
Making The Case
At Independence Hall, where David
Ben-Gurion declared the State of
Israel 66 years ago, Netanyahu pro-
claimed in advance of Yom HaAtzmaut,
Israeli Independence Day (this year
May 5): "The State of Israel will always
preserve full equality, in personal and
civil rights, of all citizens, Jewish and
non-Jewish alike, in a Jewish and dem-
ocratic state."
Left-wing Knesset parties
denounced Netanyahu's legislative
proposal. Meretz party leader Zahava
Gal-on called it "a superfluous legal
declaration that will not help Israel
remain a Jewish state." Technically,
she's right. Such a law would provide
no guarantees.
What it would do is legislate the
key theme of Israel's Declaration
of Independence: "the right of the
Jewish people to national rebirth
in its own country." That right was
affirmed in the Balfour Declaration of
1917 and reaffirmed in the Mandate
of the League of Nations, "which, in
particular, gave explicit international
recognition to this historic connection
between the Jewish people and Eretz
Israel" – the biblical Land of Israel,
which includes the State of Israel as
well as Judea and Samaria, which con-
stitute the West Bank. The Mandate
further set the "right of the Jewish
people to rebuild its national home."
Palestinian Backlash
The same day Netanyahu stated
his intent for a law governing the
state's cultural makeup, Israel-based
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)
reported that the official P.A. televi-
sion service had broadcast a young
child reciting a poem urging commit-
ment to a "war that will smash the
oppression and destroy the Zionist's
soul." PMW has documented at least
three other broadcasts of children
reciting the same poem.
Such vile broadcasts hardly provide
the impetus for Israel to negotiate;
Abbas is hardly the moderate he's
purported to be by the Obama admin-
istration.
Influential Hamas leaders Mahmoud
Al-Zahar and Khaled Mashaal maintain
their organization, which rules the
Gaza Strip, will stay committed to the
eradication of Israel in the aftermath
of the April unity agreement between
Hamas and Fatah. They further main-
tain the Palestinian government
envisioned by the agreement would
follow such a rejectionist stance,
regardless of Abbas' claim otherwise.
The Mandate of the
League of Nations
"gave explicit
international
recognition to this
historic connection
between the Jewish
people and Eretz
Israel — the biblical
Land of Israel."
Standing Tall
The essence of what Israel is at its
core is central to any objective debate
over the proposal to anchor Israel's
status as the national state of the
Jewish people.
Leadership takes many shapes.
Netanyahu will have a hard time enlist-
ing enough support for the legislation
he is seeking without spurring collapse
of his fragile governmental coalition.
But he isn't wrong in testing the politi-
cal rapids.
As the Likud Party leader put it:
"Supporting the establishment of a
Palestinian national state and oppos-
ing the recognition of the Jewish
national state undermines – over the
long term – the State of Israel's very
right to exist." ❑
Guest Column
Why You Should Care About Scholars' Vote
R
ecently, I was asked by members
of the Michigan Jewish com-
munity why it matters that the
Modern Language Association (MLA) is
currently voting on a resolution, 2014-1,
that requests the U.S. State Department "to
contest Israel's denials of entry to the West
Bank by United States academics who
have been invited to teach, confer or do
research at Palestinian universities:'
Why, they wanted to know, should any-
one care about a relatively innocuous and
utterly toothless sanction request from a
group of scholars?
I believe that this resolution represents a
28
significant early step in the BDS
(Boycott, Divestment, Sanction)
movement's efforts to dele-
gitimize the State of Israel. The
MLA is a high-prestige target in
a strategy to win the hearts and
minds of America's intellectual
class. The MLA vote offers pro-
ponents of the BDS movement
serious credibility and, should
their resolution pass, a platform
from which to garner consider-
ably more influence.
The MLA is an organization
of approximately 30,000 higher-education
professionals representing English and the
modern languages. It is respon-
sible for the most prestigious
journal in literary criticism,
PMLA; a significant group of
publications, including the
MLA Handbook for Writers of
Research Papers; and a yearly
conference that attracts nearly
10,000 scholars and also func-
tions as a highly competitive
job fair.
The association has a long
history of taking political posi-
tions advocating for higher
education in general and the humanities
in particular. Depending on one's stake
in the debate, MLA Resolution 2014-1 is
in keeping with the organization's deep
commitment to the open exchange of free
speech, or — and this is where I stand —
a terrible veering away from the associa-
tion's mission into a space where scholars
are denied the very capacities for expres-
sion we are so determined to protect.
I have been an MLA member for more
than 30 years, and I currently serve on
the MIAs Delegate Assembly. When
Resolution 2014-1 was brought before
the Delegate Assembly, I joined Dr. Cary
Nelson (University of Illinois), a life
member of MLA and former president of
the American Association of University
The MLA on page 29
May 15 • 2014